Bound to Be a Groom (9 page)

“Why have you always tempered your dreams so?”

“What a strange thing to say, Isabella.”

“Don’t evade.”

“Very well. I was not, as you say, tempering my dreams. You and I have had these differences for the many years of our friendship. I was not born to this way of life.” She looked toward the splendid
alcázar
, with its extensive manicured gardens and buzzing apiary in the distance. “Even the bees enjoy luxurious accommodations here.”

“You always say that this world is foreign to you,” Isabella replied impatiently, “but deep down, your blood is as blue as mine.”

“You are a terrible snob, Isabella.” When she reddened at the small insult, Anna quickly added, “I didn’t mean it as a cut.”

Isabella pursed her lips.

“Oh, well, perhaps I did,” Anna admitted. “A bit. But I only meant that your view of the world is so fixed. How could it be any other way? Your path has been set since you were born in that palace. There was no point in my dreaming of this sort of life.”

“There is always a point in dreaming.” Isabella spoke softly, looking back to admire her magnificent husband. “What if I had never pursued my dream of escape? I would have never met Javi.”

Anna considered her logic. “Perhaps I will grow to love Sebastian the way you love Javi. You did not love him right away, did you?”

Isabella blushed. “No. In fact, I found him rather impossible. It would have made much more sense for me to fall in love with someone more appropriate like . . . well, like Sebastian.”

Anna was unable to repress a small chuckle at how
inappropriate
Sebastian could be.

Isabella smiled in return. “What is funny?”

“Nothing,” Anna said. “Pray continue. Why would Sebastian have been a more appropriate match?”

“Because he is from a good family, obviously, and he’s so much more
amenable
than Javi, and quite handsome as well, don’t you think?” Isabella asked.

“I suppose . . .” Anna felt the skin at the back of her neck tingle when she thought of Sebastian’s
amenability
. He happened to turn his horse and smile at her at just that moment; Anna marveled at how he was so open, so unafraid of showing his affection. The horse pulled in the other direction and the connection was lost.

“See? Even that!” Isabella chuckled. “He is certainly not the type of man one considers
comme ci
,
comme ça
. Sebastian is unquestionably handsome, yet you remain ambivalent. So. Are you still in love with Pia?”

Anna gasped, and a rush of hot embarrassment crept up her neck. “Isabella!” She had never suspected Isabella knew her secret, and she certainly didn’t think she would treat it so lightly if she ever found out.

“What? You thought I didn’t know?” She looked hard into Anna’s eyes. “How stupid you must think me.” Isabella looked back at the ring as the two men went galloping past. Isabella gave them a smile and a small wave. “Wave, Anna,” she muttered between her teeth without letting her smile slip. Anna did as she was bid—waving briefly then returning her grip to the bamboo handle of her parasol—and hoped the interrogation about her life with Pia would be lost on the breeze along with the dust that the horses had kicked up.

She should have known better.

After the two caballeros had finished showing off, one of the grooms brought out another pair of quarter horses in need of exercise. They were skittish and excitable. Anna watched quietly as Sebastian dismounted and traded the reins of the horse he’d been riding for the more frantic of the two. Isabella was right after all: he was powerfully handsome. He rubbed his big, strong hand against the horse’s satiny chestnut coat, following the contours of the quivering muscles along the beast’s neck. The memory of that strong hand making its way up her inner thigh had Anna biting her lip in confusion. Her body had responded with thrilling ease to Sebastian’s touch—even now, the mere sight of him across the corral had her shifting from one foot to another in agitation—but her feelings for Pia were so much more.

“I’ll take your silence as a yes, then,” Isabella said. “You are still attached to Pia in your heart.”

“It’s complicated. I never dreamt—”

Isabella’s bark of a laugh startled the two new horses. She raised her hand and called her apology to Javi and Sebastian for the disruption. Without turning back to face Anna, she continued speaking. “That’s precisely what I was saying. I never meant that you should dream of, oh, I don’t know, impossibilities.” She paused to collect her thoughts then tilted her head to look at Anna directly. “But there’s nothing wrong with dreaming that certain things are indeed
possible
. The world is ours, don’t you see? Whether princess or peasant, it is a moment in history when we may reach—” Isabella stopped suddenly. “I’m sorry. I become as excited as those horses when I think about all the possibilities. And Javi does not exclude me. That is the wonder of it all. We talk about everything and dream together. Of how the world is changing. Of grand political movements.” Her voice went a bit lower. “And of how best to show our love for one another.”

Anna nodded. “It is a lovely marriage you have.”

Isabella stomped her booted foot. “That is not at all what I was driving at and you know it. Do you love him? Or are you still in love with Pia? At least be honest with yourself—even if you are not inclined to be honest with me.”

“Oh, Bell.” The warm summer air licked at Anna’s bare shoulders, reminding her of a lover’s touch. She wasn’t sure she knew the truth of her own feelings. “I honestly don’t know. I do love Pia. But I don’t need to choose—”

“What?” Isabella screeched.

“Sebastian is willing to give me—”

Isabella’s head spun so quickly her parasol whipped around, and she startled the horses again. “Sorry! Sorry!” she called to Javi and Sebastian.

Javi winked at them and called to his wife in a low drawl, “Perhaps you should take your important plotting and wild gesturing into the gardens, my love.”

“Very well, my lord,” she replied with mock obedience, then slipped her arm through Anna’s and led her toward the extensive gardens on the far side of the castle.

They strolled in silence for many minutes, and Anna dreaded she was going to have to endure some sort of examination as a result of admitting the nature of her arrangement with Sebastian and Pia.

When they were deep into the gardens, behind a tall trellis of climbing roses, Anna let herself relax and be lulled into believing they were taking a quiet stroll, free of perceptive best friends and their pesky inquisitions.

Alas.

Isabella turned on her heel, retracted her parasol with a quick
click
, and speared the tip into the ground. “Anna!”

“What?”

“I can’t believe I thought
you
were the one who was being taken advantage of in the library on my wedding day! Poor Sebastian.”

“What do you mean by ‘Poor Sebastian’?”

“I mean,
you
are using
him
.”

Anna stood her ground and met Isabella head-on. “Are we going to be that honest? Truly?”

“Why not?” Isabella challenged.

“Very well then. Are you not
using
Javi? Did your marriage not allow you to return to your father’s good graces? Do you not manipulate him in your way? Are not
all
marriages a mutual manipulation?”

They kept facing each other. Isabella tilted her head in thought as she twisted her parasol into the ground. “I see what you are saying . . .”

“But?”

“But I love Javi, dash it all, and he loves me.”

“What difference does love make?” Anna asked, irritation trimming her words.

Isabella let her parasol drop abruptly and grabbed Anna’s upper arm. “Love makes all the difference in the world!”

The words slammed through her. She knew they were true, but she was so confused. Anna knew she loved Pia, but was it so wrong to merely
like
Sebastian for now? She had never lied to him about her feelings, after all; she had never misled him with promises of anything more.

“Something done with love, even something cruel, can be so beautiful,” Isabella continued. “I know you believe that. I saw how you were with Pia.”

Once again, Isabella’s words cut Anna to the quick and brought back a flood of memories—of Pia in her arms, panting and satisfied from the cruel, beautiful love Anna could bestow upon her. She nearly wept. “Were we so obvious?”

“Stop it, Anna. No one knew. I knew because I know
you
. I saw the subtle differences when you two were next to each other at meals or during prayers. You were softer somehow. That is what I mean. If you have no intention of
ever
giving that to Sebastian, why would you marry him?”

Anna looked away from her friend’s stern face but didn’t bother wiping at her own slow, hot tears. They burned like a fiery penance. “I am not a good person.”

“Of course you are!” Isabella reached out and wiped Anna’s tears away. “That’s what I am attempting to convey, you stubborn girl. At least give yourself
permission
to love him, to learn to love him.”

Anna huffed out a low laugh. “It’s not at all what I had
planned
.”

Isabella’s laughter rang through the gardens. “Ah! The truth comes out. I call them dreams; you call them plans. Much the same, no?” Isabella closed the distance between them. “Please promise me that you will be open to the possibility of loving him?”

Anna was overcome. Making this particular promise was likely more important than her upcoming wedding vows. Allowing for the possibility—that she could one day love Sebastian—was allowing for so much. It meant that she believed she actually
deserved
to love him, and even more disarming, that she deserved to be loved in return. She took a breath, but it couldn’t quite fill her lungs around the enormity of what was truly her first leap of faith. “Fine. I promise.”

Isabella nodded her approval and bent to retrieve her parasol.

“Satisfied?” Anna quipped, trying to lighten the mood.

“No,” Isabella replied quickly. “There’s still the other matter.”

Anna could tell Isabella was back to her mischievous self as they resumed strolling around the gardens. “Which other matter might that be?”

“So tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“Tell me . . . how in the world you got Sebastian to agree to letting you keep your relationship with Pia.”

“Isabella!”

“What? You don’t think I’ve asked Javi?” Isabella smiled.

“No!”

“Well, I did. I thought it might be fun, for variety’s sake, mind you. Nothing serious, of course!”

Anna nodded slowly, knowing perfectly well what the possessive Javi’s response to that must have been, but she played along. “And?”

“Never! He said he would never let another person in our bed. Man or woman. He was furious I’d suggested it.” She winked. “As wicked as he is in other ways, I thought he’d see it as a bit of lark.” Isabella shrugged.

“And then that was the end of it?”

“Hardly. He punished me for days for even broaching the subject.” Anna was momentarily concerned until Isabella smiled again. “So we were both happy.”

Anna laughed.

“So?” Isabella prompted again. “Share and share alike. How did you get Sebastian to agree to it?”

Anna smiled at all the brutal ways she knew she could get Sebastian to agree to anything she wished but said lightly, “I think Sebastian is quite looking forward to the possibilities.”

“Oh dear.” Isabella kicked a pebble and had a cross look of disappointment on her brow.

“What is it? Surely I cannot have shocked you.”

“No, of course not. Now I shall be jealous.”

When they arrived in Madrid five days before their wedding, Anna was swept up in a storm of activity. Sebastian’s mother had made appointments with dressmakers, lace makers, lingerie makers from Paris, boot smiths, milliners, cobblers, furriers; Anna’s schedule was full from morning until night. Sebastian had been honest about his background, but Anna had not been fully prepared for the extent of his wealth and his family’s powerful position. Naturally, it was a situation to which she adapted with remarkable speed.

On their third night in town, while playing a game of whist in the drawing room after supper, she watched Sebastian smile innocently when his mother praised Anna’s inherent talent for managing the tradespeople and servants. His two younger sisters were likewise delighted with the soft-spoken blonde woman Anna presented to the world, the woman who seemed to have captured their mysterious brother’s heart so completely. Sebastian’s father adored her love of Cervantes and Shakespeare. And even as she won the hearts of everyone in his close circle, Anna could tell Sebastian didn’t care much about any of that. He was completely focused on their wedding night, leaving her little trinkets and notes letting her know what it was costing him to repress his ardor.

They were permitted to walk unchaperoned each afternoon in the Parque del Buen Retiro. The ever-present Sister Elvira had finally returned to the convent, once she was assured Anna’s virtue was secure under the watchful eye of the very formal Condesa de Montizon.